As he surveys the people of Kansas City, painter Joseph Lorusso sees something that others don't: Artistic inspiration.

"I've always been drawn to the human figure and expression through the figurative," he says. "For me, there's nothing that has the most immediate connection than somebody painting another human being."

The resulting work of that connection is what's being showcased at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art with Joseph Lorusso's "Dreams Begin" exhibit.

Lorusso, a professional artist for 20 years, has been influenced by people and surroundings through his travels. A Chicago native of Italian decent, he and his family made frequent trips throughout his life to Italy and other parts of Europe where the works of impressionist and post-impressionist artists rubbed off on him.

"Really, (impressionism) has pretty much been the road that has spoken to me," Lorusso says. "They were kind of marrying (and) taking the old world and the new world and kind of bringing them together."

After moving from Chicago to Kansas City to work as a designer and illustrator for Hallmark, he went out on his own in 1999. From there, if he wasn't capturing and sketching the sights and people he saw throughout the city, he would use models and locations to create a narrative - scenes that sparked from his imagination.

He considers himself a tonalist since he alters the frequently warm colors of his locations to support the mood of the story.

The technique and tone are something that Albrecht-Kemper Museum Director Terry Oldham noticed when he first encountered Lorusso's work.

"He's a realist, but he's got a ... sometimes moody subject matter," Oldham says. "You feel it even though you don't know exactly what you're feeling."

Accompanying Lorusso's exhibit of 52 pieces will be two other exhibits. There is also the "Saint Joseph School District Kindergarten through Eighth Grade Student Art Exhibition," which the museum is bringing back due to the receptive response it got last year. The other is "Depicting Identity: Portraits and Self-Portraits from the Albrecht-Kemper Collection." This particular exhibit is for the general public but serves particular interest to the fifth-grade art students who come to the museum for school tours.

"It's how artists depict themselves, how artists depict other people in all kinds of mediums," he says. "What we want is for them to consider how they would portray themselves or how they would want someone to portray them after they look at all these different art forms."

Both Joseph Lorusso's "Dreams Begin" and "Depicting Identity: Portraits and Self-Portraits from the Albrecht-Kemper Collection" will be on display April 18 through June 7, with opening receptions from 1 to 4 p.m. April 25. The "Saint Joseph School District Kindergarten through Eighth Grade Student Art Exhibition" is on display April 19 through May 17 with an opening reception from 2 to 4 p.m. April 19 and a closing reception from 1 to 4 p.m. May 17.

Blake Hannon | Stjoelive staff